8
Twilight came after the long sunset, staining red the high clouds in the west. A light wind had come from the North, carrying the chill of mountaintop glaciers with it, though there was little snow left on even the highest peaks that could be seen from the city. It grabbed at the loose shutters, banging them open and closed like an idiot child in love with the noise. Banners rippled and trees nodded like old men. It was as if an errant breath of winter had stolen into the warm nights. Otah sat in his private chambers, still in his formal robes. He felt no drafts, but the candles flickered in sympathy with the wind.
The letters unfolded before him were in a simple cipher. The years he had spent in the gentleman's trade, carrying letters and contracts and information on the long roads between the cities of the Khaiem, returned to him, and he read the enciphered text as easily as if it had been written plainly. It was as Nlaati and Cehmai had said. The Wards of the Westlands were united in a state of panic. The doom of the world seemed about to fall upon them.
Since the letters had arrived, Otah's world had centered on the news. He had sent another runner to the Dai-kvo with a pouch so heavy with lengths of silver, the man could have bought a fresh horse at every low town he passed through if it would get him there faster. Otah had sat up long nights with Nlaati and Cehmai, even with Liat and Nayiit. I Jere was the plan, then. With the threat of an andat of their own, the Galts would roll through the Westlands, perhaps Eddensea as well. In a year, perhaps two, they might own Bakta and Eymond too. The cities of the Khaiem would find themselves cut off from trade, and perhaps the rogue poet would even become a kind of Galtic Dai-kvo in time. The conquest of the Westlands was the first campaign in a new war that might make the destruction of the Old Empire seem minor.
And still, Otah read the letters again, his mind unquiet. There was something there, something more, that he had overlooked. The certainty of the Gaits, their willingness to show their power. Whenever they tired of trade or felt themselves losing at the negotiating tables, Galt had been pleased to play raider and pirate. It had been that way for as long as Otah could remember. The Galtic High Council had schemed and conspired. It shouldn't have been odd that, emboldened by success, they would take to the field. And yet…
Otah turned the pages with a sound as dry as autumn leaves. They couldn't be attacking the Khaiem; even with an andat in their possession, they would he overwhelmed. The cities might have their rivalries and disputes, but an attack on one would unite them against their common foe. 'Thirteen cities each with its own poet added to whatever the Dai-kvo held in reserve in his village. At worst, more than a dozen to one, and each of them capable of destruction on a scale almost impossible to imagine. The Galts wouldn't dare attack the Khaiem. It was posturing. Negotiation. It might even be a bluff; the poet might have tried his binding, paid the price of failure, and left the Galts with nothing but bluster to defend themselves.
Otah had heard all these arguments, had made more than one of them himself. And still night found him here, reading the letters and searching for the thoughts behind them. It was like hearing a new voice in a choir. Somewhere, someone new had entered the strategies of the Gaits, and these scraps of paper and pale ink were all that Otah had to work out what that might mean.
Ile could as well have looked for words written in the air.
A scratching came at the door, followed by a servant boy. The boy took a pose of obeisance and Otah replied automatically.
'The woman you sent for, Most High. Liat Chokavi.'
'Bring her in. And bring some wine and two bowls, then see we aren't disturbed.'
'But, Most High-'
'We'll pour our own wine,' Otah snapped, and regretted it instantly as the boy's face went pale. Otah pressed down the impulse to apologize. It was beneath the dignity of the Khai Machi to apologize for rudeness-one of the thousand things he'd learned when he first took his father's chair. One of the thousand missteps he had made. The boy backed out of the room, and Otah turned to the letters, folding them hack in their order and slipping them into his sleeve. The boy preceded Liat into the room, a tray with a silver carafe and two hand-molded bowls of granite in his hands. Liat sat on the low divan, her eyes on the floor in something that looked like respect but might only have been fear.
The door closed, and Otah poured a generous portion of wine into each bowl. Liat took the one he proffered.
'It's lovely work,' Liat said, considering the stone.
'It's the andat,' Otah said. 'He turns the quarry rock into something like clay, and the potters shape it. One of the many wonders of Machi. Have you seen the bridge that spans the river? A single stone poured over molds and shaped by hand five generations hack. And there's the towers. Really, we're a city of petty miracles.'
'You sound hitter,' she said, looking up at last. Her eyes were the same tea-and-milk color he remembered. Otah sighed as he sat across from her. Outside, the wind murmured.
'I'm not,' he said. 'Only tired.'
'I knew you wouldn't end as a seafront laborer,' she said.
'Yes, well…' Otah shook his head and sipped from the howl. It was strong wine, and it left his mouth feeling clean and his chest warm. 'It's time we spoke about Nayiit.'
Liat nodded, took a long drink, and held the cup out for more. Otah poured.
'It's all my fault,' she said as she sat hack. 'I should never have brought him here. I never saw it. I never saw you in him. He was always just himself. If I'd known that… that he resembled you quite so closely, I wouldn't have.'
'Late for that,' Otah said.
Liat sighed her agreement and looked up at him. It was hard to believe that they had been lovers once. The girl he had known hack then hadn't had gray in her hair, weariness in her eyes. And the boy he'd been was as distant as snow in summer. Yes, two people had kissed once, had touched each other, had created a child who had grown to manhood. And Otah remembered some of those moments nowshowering at the barracks while she spoke to him, the ink blocks at the desk in her cell at the compound of House Wilsin, the feel of a young body pressed against his own, when his flesh had also been new and unmarked. If those days long past had been foolish or wrong, the only evidence was the price they both paid now. It hadn't seemed so at the time.
'I've been thinking of it,' Liat said. 'I haven't told him. I wasn't sure how you wanted to address the problem. But I think the wisest thing to do is to speak with him and with Maati, and then have Nayiitkya take the brand. I know it's not something done with firstborn sons, but it's still a repudiation of his right to become Khai. It will make it clear to the world that he doesn't have designs on your chair.'
''T'hat isn't what I'd choose,' Otah said. His words were slow and careful. 'I'm afraid my son may die.'
She caught her breath. It was hardly there, no more than a tremor in the air she took in, but he heard it.
'Itani,' she said, using the name of the boy he'd been in Saraykeht, 'please. I'll swear on anything you choose. Nayiit's no threat to Danat. It was only the Galts that brought us here. I'm not looking to put my son in your chair…'
Otah put down his bowl and took a pose that asked for her silence. Her face pale, she went quiet.
'I don't mean that,' he said softly. 'I mean that I don't… Gods. I don't know how to say this. Danat's not well. His lungs are fragile, and the winters here are bad. We lose people to the cold every year. Not just the old or the weak. Young people. Healthy ones. I'm afraid that Danat may dic, and there'll be no one to take my place. The city would tear itself apart.'
'But… you want…'
'I haven't done a good job as Khai. I haven't been able to put the houses of the utkhaiem together except in their distrust of me and resentment of Kiyan. There's been twice it came near violence, and I only held the city in place by luck. But keeping Machi safe is my responsibility. I want Nayiit unbranded, in case… in case he becomes my successor.
Liat's mouth hung open, her eyes were wide. A stray lock of hair hung down the side of her face, three white hairs dancing in and out among the black. He felt the faint urge-echo of a habit long forgotten-to brush it back.
''There,' Otah said and picked up his wine bowl. 'There, I've said it.'
'I'm sorry,' Liat said, and Otah took a pose accepting her sympathy without knowing quite why she was offering it. She looked down at her hands. The silence between them was profound but not uncomfortable; he felt
